On June 15, 2006, NIH/AHRQ began posting new Funding Opportunity Announcements (FOAs) with the new version (Version 2) of the SF424 (R&R) and agency-specific (labeled PHS 398) electronic application forms. In addition, many existing FOAs were updated to include the new Version 2 forms and expire the older application packages. The Competition ID of the new application packages have been populated with the label “VERSION-2-FORMS” for easy identification. The Competition ID appears at the top of the page when you open an application package with the PureEdge viewer. See NOT-OD-06-078 and NOT-OD-06-085 for details on the phase in of the Version 2 forms.

We have identified an issue with the Research & Related Senior/Key Person Profile form component included in the Version 2 packages. The section of the PureEdgeä form that allows attachments for Additional Senior/Key Person Profiles, Additional Biographical Sketches, and Additional Current and Pending Support is missing. Without this section, applications are limited to eight Senior Key Persons. Grants.gov is working to correct the form as quickly as possible.

Until this form issue is addressed by Grants.gov, NIH would like applicants to use the following workaround when more than eight Senior/Key Persons are needed for an application and Version 2 of the forms are used:

Field 11 of the Research & Related Other Project Information form component allows for “Other Attachments”. The “Other Attachment” field should be used to separately attach the Additional Senior/Key Person Profile and Additional Biographical Sketch PDF attachments that normally would have been included on the Research & Related Senior/Key Person Profile form component. (Consistent with current policy, Additional Current and Pending Support should only be provided when specifically instructed in an FOA.)

The PDFs that are included with “Other Attachments” will be placed in the assembled application immediately before the Senior/Key Person Profile page and bookmarked in the Table of Contents with a single entry of “Other Attachments”. Application Reviewers will be notified of this workaround.

Note that institutions that have created system-to-system solutions or that work with a commercial service provider to submit applications to Grants.gov should not be affected by this form issue (i.e., XML schema is complete). Applications submitted to FOAs that have not been updated to Version 2 also are not affected by this form issue. This is only an issue for applications submitted using Version 2 of the PureEdgeä forms.

The following resources continue to be available for assistance in the electronic submission of grant applications to NIH/AHRQ through Grants.gov: